


A God Has Cursed Me With This Sight

by Erradianwhocantread



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abuse, Bad Parenting, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Death, Depression, F/F, Fatalism, Filicide, Gen, Infanticide, Manipulation, Other, PTSD, Terrifying Tolkien Week, baby snatching, licking things to claim them as your own, look idk how else to tag implied spleen licking ok, more to come - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-28 07:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12600956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erradianwhocantread/pseuds/Erradianwhocantread
Summary: My terrifying tolkien week entries for 2017, one week late.





	1. All Shall Fade

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. All Shall Fade:
> 
> \-- Galadriel post-canon, a disturbing portrait of post-akallabeth Valinor, but an unreliable narrator.

Artanis could have laughed that she was the only one who knew the secret who could speak. She could have laughed to realize after all this time that they had been right so long ago. That in his madness, Feanaro had happened by accident upon the truth. She could have laughed to see so many much prouder and much wiser than her cheerfully (willfully?) ignorant, could have laughed to see the changes wrought in those “released,” could have laughed. Could have, but did not. Laughing was so much effort now. And what would be the point. She should have died. She wished, sometimes, that she had. Like her siblings. Like her cousins. Those brought back did not, could not perhaps, notice. Or that she had stayed. 

Mostly she did nothing.

She had seen it first in the Men who had become the Nine. Had seen it in those poor halflings burdened with the One. Had seen it, and yet not understood. Foolish. He was of their kin, after all. His creation nothing other or separate from his Self. Wise they had called her, and she could have laughed at the lie that only she knew it to be. She could have. But she did not.

She did nothing.

Her daughter came to her sometimes. Her friends, sometimes, Elrond and Orophor, Mablung, Finduilas (but not Gil Galad), and her siblings, sometimes, Aikanaro and Angarato, Findarato, sometimes (so changed, so very changed, and oh so subtly). Her father and mother came sometimes. They wanted her to go to Lorien. Elrond and her father had even gone up the slopes of Taniquetil itself, the former to harangue, the latter to plead, for she who had never bowed the head in defeat, she who had disdained pardon because she had no need of it, to be exempted from the doom. She could have laughed that they thought any of them exempt, that they thought it was possible to be exempt. She could have. But she did not.

She did nothing.

It mattered not if she went to Lorien, as it had mattered not for Miriel, as it mattered for none of them. No garden could restore her to life, not here. For nothing lived in these lands. Nothing lived, and nothing died, and yet all was worse than dead. Undying the lands were called, and so it was. And yet they did not live. How did they not see that they were all, all floating in embalming fluid? How could they not smell it? Not feel it as it dripped from their fingers and hair? She was a fool. They all had been. To think that staying in the world was what it meant to fade, that leaving it for this museum, this mausoleum, was safety. So foolish. She could have laughed. She could have wept. She could have screamed. She could have taken ship back again across the border into the living world. She could have. But she did not.

She did nothing at all.


	2. Stars, Hide Your Fires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gollum gets some nice take-out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- Sometime between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring

Better here. Better here than under the mountain, yes Precious, so much better. Better air. Not so foul with Orcses stink, no! Better fishes too, Precious! Yes, yes! Shining, sparkling, great fishes jumping and flashing in the rivers, so juicy sweet. But no sparkling and shining tonight. No, Precious. Tonight was best night. No light. That was not better than under the mountain. Too much light out here, Precious, nasty, harsh, burning, burning! Burning our skin and our eyes like knives! Better at night, but not better than under. Nasty moon out here, yes, with its ugly round face and its glowing… hurts our eyes, Precious, yes it does. And starses. Forgot about those, we did, Precious. Nasty peeping eyes, always looking at us, spying on us they are! But not tonight, Precious.

Not tonight.

Better in the trees. We likes trees, Precious, yes we does. Great slimy trees that let in no light. Much better in there. But we do not go there. No, no, Precious, not in there. Can’t get squealers in there. Squealers much better than orcses. Much much better than goblinses. Better than cave fishes, oh yes, oh yes! So juicy, so sweet, so tender! We waited, Precious, yes we did, we waited for tonight for squealers. No ugly moon tonight to show its nasty face, no stars tonight to spy on us with sneaking peeping eyes! Just cloud. Just dark. Just how we likes it, yes!

Yes!

Perfect for squealers. Would be nice to get the ones from in the trees, even juicier we thinks, even sweeter, but such sneaky squealers they are, yes. Can see in the dark, and their pens, they burns us. Nasty little cheats. Cheats like Baggins. Should have eaten him when we could have, yes, Precious, we should have! Nasty little cheat, Baggins, nasty little thief! Baggins is why we can only get squealers on the dark dark nights, Precious, since he stole you from us. Nasty thieving hobbit. Should have put our fingers about his throat, precious, should have squeezed and squeezed, like we do with squealers, yes! Should have bitten down on his fat, juicy throat! 

We will find him, Precious, we will. And we will eat him, yes, yes! And we will find you, precious, and we will be together again, oh yes we shall. But first we must eat. First we gets the squealers! 

 

* * *

Signy awoke slowly to the songs of birds and sunlight streaming through her window. She stretched luxuriously, enjoying the languid flow of life back into her limbs after a good night’s sleep, her first since… since… 

Signy’s eyes flew open and she bolted upright, breathing hard. 

Gilind had not cried during the night.

Signy tried to calm herself as she made her way to the kitchen where she had left her baby in his cradle the night before near the fire, tried to slow her breathing to match her steps. It was, in all likelihood, fine. She had slept through the night before her first year, so her mother had said. She tried to ignore the racing of her heart and the way her breasts ached from missing the customary late-night feeding. She tried to stop herself from trembling as she approached the still cradle next to the smoldering embers.

She could not stop her screams when she found it empty.


	3. Wild Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Findekano and Gelmir make difficult decisions on the Helcaraxe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- Rule 63-ed Fingon and Turgon. If you really don't like rule 63, I suggest you read something else you will enjoy more.

For the fifth day (though there were no days any longer, only darkness) in a row, Findekano’s party had found no quary. For the fifth day of darkness, they returned to their people empty-handed. For the fifth day in a row, she had to look into the faces of her friends and her kin, the faces of her followers and of their children, pinched with cold and with want, and tell them that once again there would be no food. For the fifth day in a row she watched the other hunting parties return to deliver the same terrible news, and for the fifth day in a row she watched as her people tried to bear up under the Doom of the ice, tried not to show their fear and sorrow. It was almost enough to make her want to turn back. Almost enough to question, as Anaire had, whether Nolofinwe was leading them to death in a neverending darkness. It would have been enough to make her weep had she not known that the tears would only freeze on her cheeks. It was her responsibility, as prince, to bear the disappointed looks of her people, to bear the resigned gazes of the parents who knew that their children would not wake in a few hours when they had to move on, yet she could not. Not again, and not from her sister. And so she walked off into the blank void of the dark, the sickly colors undulating above her.

Someone had followed her. Findekano turned. Gelmir was at her elbow. She knew he likely felt worse than she did about her failure at the hunt. His young brother was unlikely to last another night without food. At first she thought he had decided to share her solitude, to indulge the same guilty sorrow as she, and so she continued beside him in silence as the wind cut through their clothes.

“Highness,” Gelmir said when they were well away from the vast camp of their doomed people, “they need not go hungry tonight. There is meat, and we know where to find it, and it cannot give us the slip as the seals have.” He spoke quietly, but in his voice Findekano could hear the echo of the grim determination of Nolofinwe when they realized the grinding ice was their only possible path to Endor.

Findekano wondered at first if he had descended into a madness driven by the biting winds and the bottomless hopelessness of this death march. But in his eyes she saw something much worse than madness. Gelmir was not wrong. Every time they rose to continue on they left behind them meat, perfectly preserved by the ice. “No,” she commanded. “It is an abomination. Even the wild beasts do not.”

“The wild beasts will gnaw off their own limbs to preserve their lives. And this way their deaths would not be in vain.”

Findekano thought of those who would not rise from sleep after the watches, whose spirits were so shaky within them that every hour without food loosed the bonds further. She thought of Gwindor, stubbornly trying to follow his brother on the hunts, stubbornly following his brother out of Aman on chubby child’s legs grown spindly and brittle. She thought of Itarille, far too old to be carried but wrapped for the last two marches to Turukano’s breast like a babe, her once-constant chattering palpably absent. She wondered if Turukano would continue to carry Itarille’s corpse once the cold had claimed her, or if Turukano would like down beside her and never stir again. 

“If we are clever about it, no one need know. If we cut it up well enough, and if we leave the bones, Highness, or cut them small enough, we should be able to pass it off as a starved seal.”

Findekano thought of the fire in the eyes and hearts of those who had already succumbed to the cold, thought of the way many of them had given the food that would have sustained them to children who now would not survive another march without food, thought of the sick feeling that seized her every time she watched the cold dull and stifle yet another flaming Noldor spirit, the horror of watching the still bodies of friends and kin fade into the darkness behind them.

“What say you, my prince?”

Findekano watched the lurid lights squirm across the black sky like snakes, and looked beyond them to the cold stars. Her people had once looked to them for hope and for help. But that was before they had known or understood the cold, cruel indifference of them. “Gather the others,” she said. “But only those as you know we can trust not to waver.” 

It was fortunate that the Noldor had already decided it was no crime to take the clothes from the empty bodies of the dead. Stripping them would have felt too debasing. They worked silently other than the occasional question. Was this small enough? Which organs were too recognizable, and which could they pass off? (Livers, they decided, held too much wholesomeness to waste, and hearts were too distinctive to risk.) Should they leave the remnants on the surface of the ice, or try to put them under it? (Waste of energy, and it wouldn’t help their souls rest easier.)

Their people cheered when they returned with food. Some wept. Some cast themselves upon the ice and lifted undeserved praise to Manwe and to Varda and to Orome. Findekano brought an unfairly large portion to Turukano and Itarille and held her retching in check when her sister threw her arms around her and wept with gratitude and relief. 

It was well, she told herself. This way they had not died in vain.


	4. The Iron Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feanor realizes the implications of his Oath

The spirit of fire raged in solitude in the Halls of Mandos, for how long he could not say. Time held little meaning in this shadow-realm. Feanaro raged and raged until all that was left of him, once again, was ash, soon to be blown away. 

Someone came to him, collected the gray dust of his spirit, sheltered it from scattering. Eventually, as his cold ashes were molded and stoked back into a coherent shape, he recognized the hand at work as his father’s. Long did their spirits lean into each other, long did they mingle their sorrow in the fathomless silence of the Halls. Long was it ere there was aught of Feanaro but sorrow and madness and bitter, smoldering fury. Feanaro poured his guilt and his impotence before the father he had failed to protect, failed to avenge, and long it was before he understood that Finwe had desired no vengeance. He poured before his king and father his guilt and his rage over his fallen son. When Finwe understood what he had done, he vanished. 

Feanaro was left alone, once again, his only companion his own remorse. Long it was before he realized it need not be so. His father had found him here, in the pathless Halls. Why should he not find his own son, whom he had sent here before him with his own bloody hand? Long it was that Feanaro searched the halls, and searched them in vain for his youngest son. Long did the desperate longing of his spirit spoil the peace of the halls with its frenzy before the Lord of Mandos intervened.

_ For what purpose, Feanaro Curufinwe, Accursed and Dispossessed, dost thou break the peace of my Halls, break the peace of my Dead whom thou hast caused to be my guests? _

There are few things in Ea more fell and awful than the gaze of the Doomsman. Yet such was Feanaro’s dread and such was his terror and such was his longing that he took no notice. 

_ Where is my son? Where is my Pityafinwe, my Ambarussa, called Umbarto, who went before me into your keep and yet who I find not? Where is he? _

The Doomsman gave no heed to the distress of this spirit, nor to its crimes, but only to the truth, and to what must be. 

_ He is not here. _

_ Then where is he, where is he?? Where is my son?  _ the spirit wailed.

_ To the Darkness Everlasting did Pityafinwe Ambarussa, called Umbarto, swear himself should he turn aside from his Oath. At Losgar did he turn aside, and at Losgar he was slain by thine own hand, Feanaro Curufinwe, slayer of thy kin. Well dost thou know where he has gone. _

Long it was ere the wailing of that inconsolable spirit burned itself out, and long it was ere the final price of his Oath on the world was tallied. 


	5. Beauty is Terror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beren's perspective on being rescued from Tol in Gaurhoth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rule 63'ed Beren. (I hc Beren as a trans lesbian). If you don't like that, I suggest you read something you will like instead.

Beren had thought she knew what terror was. She thought she knew the face of terror better than any other, Elf or Mortal, in Arda. She had passed through the heart of Nan Dungortheb, with its nameless horrors that put the pits of Angband to shame, and lived to tell the tale, though she could not. She had languished in the dark pit of Tol in Gauroth, never knowing if the wolf should come for her next. Yes, if anyone understood terror, it was her.

Beren had thought she knew as well what beauty was. She had seen the spring in Dorthonian before the Shadow had fallen upon it, had seen the enchanted halls of Menegroth and the glittering caves of Nargothrond, and had looked upon the fairest of all the fair folk besides. She had seen the storied Nauglamir at the throat of Felagund arrayed in all splendor before the magnificent court beside the Narog. Surely she understood beauty.

She had thought she knew them, and that they were separate. She had been horribly, horribly wrong.

Above the pit, the dust and grime eddying about her as if afraid to come too near, stood Tinuviel, her beloved. And Tinuviel was laughing, laughing as she had been when Beren had first espied her dancing upon the grass. Tinuviel laughed and laughed as she cast down stone walls, burst and twisted iron and steel bars, and crumbled staircases to dust with a wave of her hand. She laughed as she sent the awful creatures of Gorthaur scurrying and screaming into the night, flying fast as they could from spectres or horror she had thrown up before their eyes. She laughed, not the cruel laugh of Gorthaur or the mocking laugh of Curufin or the triumphant laugh of the Men of the house of Beor, but the clear sparkling laugh of an innocent giddy with glee at watching a cat with a string. The shimmering cloak she had made of her hair billowed about her, as her cropped locks danced about her face, and her smile… Beren had thought once it could have lit the entire world, and today as she watched that smile light the black pit of the isle of wolves, she knew it could. Nightingale, she had dubbed her beloved, in her foolishness. Nightingales were gentle and shy. Here was Luthien revealed not as the sheltered elf-child of Thingol, but as the protege of Melian the Sorceress, who could hold the Morgoth himself at bay. Here was the awesome power of a creature born of one who had sung the world itself into being. She trod upon the corpses of Orcs and Wargs with her spotless feet and flowers sprung up through their nostrils and up through the slime-covered and twisted paving stone of the keep. Songbirds flocked to her from the surrounding woods and riverlands to pluck the eyes from the dark creatures and cover their hideous cries with their songs. Everywhere she stepped, a merciless spring followed in her wake. 

Beren’s vision faltered and faded as Tinuviel descended into the pit, her sweet voice calling her name, Compulsion hidden in the notes. As Beren slipped from consciousness, she was certain she had never seen anything so beautiful or so fell in her life.


	6. Blood Is Thicker than Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curufin contemplates her father at Losgar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rule 63 Curufin and Celebrimbor. If you do not like rule 63, please go read something you will like instead.

The air was thick and noxious with the smell of burning wood, burning pitch, burning metal, and burning flesh. Those the burning ships had brought to this far and alien shore had already busied themselves setting a camp, scouting putting up defenses. But on the beach, near enough to the burning ships to singe their hair, Feanaro and his children wailed. Maitimo held a frantic and screaming Ambarussa back from joining his twin in the flames while Carnistir and Tyelkormo quarrelled bitterly with Makalaure over whose fault it was that their brother had met such a gruesome fate. 

Curufinwe was silent, watching their father where he stood further down the beach, outlined against the darkness by the flames. A blazing mast crashed into the surf, sending up a great hiss of steam like the cooling bucket in Aule’s forge, and Feanaro turned and stalked further down the beach. Curufinwe slunk away into the darkness towards the makeshift camp. She walked with a measured pace through the ranks of their people, face grave but clear, hands still. No one spoke to her, no one stopped her, but no one whispered behind her back as she passed either. Steadily, she strode towards the pile of supplies that had been left on the outskirts to sort through once the defenses had been established, leaving the buzz of activity and the fury and grief of her siblings behind. Curled up on a sack, she found what she sought, fast asleep. Curufinwe knelt beside her sleeping child, and only then, only as she reached out to smooth the loose hair away from her face, still soft around the edges with the vestiges of childhood, did she allow her hand to tremble. Tyelperinquar did not stir, of course she did not. She had been so very ill on the crossing with the pitching of the ships and with terror that she had had no rest since Curufinwe had taken her sleeping from their home.

Even in this darkness, even with childhood still clinging to her, Curufinwe could see upon Tyelperinquar the promise of her own features, the promise of Feanaro’s. She shuddered. The image of those familiar features contorted in madness, outlined in lurid detail by the flames without and the flame within as he mocked Ambarussa’s pain, as he spoke in tones so fell and fey of the death (of his murder) of Pitya (his son, formed and raised by him). Curufinwe thought of the stern glee in her father’s face, the way the light jumped eagerly behind his eyes as he set his torch against the lines of the first ship before tossing it onto the deck.  _ His ship I burned first _ . Her father had known that his son was still aboard, had known, had  _ known _ and yet had laughed as he did it. Looking down at the same face still and relaxed in sleep and innocence, Curufinwe felt her stomach give a frozen twist.

Atarinke, her mother, who had shaped her and who had knowledge of her path, had called her. Her father had broken with all tradition and given her his own name. Among those who did not know either of them well, it was not unusual for her to be mistaken for him, so alike were they in face and stature and manner and skill. She was his shadow, his double, in all things. All things. All her life she had heard it,  _ just like Feanaro _ , in all tones: resigned, disgusted, proud, awestruck, and so on. 

Just like Feanaro. It was her fate, written in her blood before she drew her first breath, unshakable as Mandos’ Doom. Curufinwe thought again of the sneer, the haughty and indifferent scorn with which her father had admitted to the burning of her brother. With one hand she pulled her own smoke-stained cloak about her child’s shoulders, and with the other she forced the tears she would shed for her fallen brother back into her eyes. If Eru was merciful, for her bright Tyelperinquar’s sake, He would let her in this one regard prove them all false.


	7. Murdered Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Himring, Maedhros has a nightmare about her time in Angband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Thanks to Fidelishaereticus for helping me develop these awful headcanons  
> 2) Rule 63'd Maedhros and Fingon because I can.  
> 3) There is some Fucked Up stuff in this chapter, y'all. Manipulation and abuse and all that jazz. Bad stuff.

Maedhros could never manage to stay awake for more than four days. It was not for want of trying. No amount of strong tea, stimulating herb, cold, terror, or will-power would fight the relentless march of sleep for much longer. A prayer to Irmo for mercy always died upon her tongue once she realized she had no choices left but surrender. She wished the failure to ask the Lord of Dreams for his protection stemmed from her pride, from the conviction shared with her father that the Valar were not their rightful lords and that it was beneath them to crawl imploring to them for anything. But she was not half so prideful as Feanor. It wouldn’t work. Irmo in Lorien would not hear her, however she importuned. And she would not anymore waste futile breath begging for a mercy that she knew would never come. Sleep came for her once again with its mockery of kindness and she felt the blessedly real trappings of her study slip away into nothing.

But it was not nothing for long.

The familiar sounds and smells of her cell rose up about her. She was bald and tattered and broken once more. And she was not alone.

“I cannot  _ believe  _ this, Russandol. I thought you understood. But such ingratitude, after all I have done for you!” 

What she had done or failed to do this time to earn the beating and the shearing didn’t matter. It never had mattered, because the game was rigged and there was no way, even if she’d wanted to, that she could have pleased this creature well enough to avoid its childish wrath. And yet she could never stop herself from frantically trying to piece together the exact anatomy of what her mistake had been, never stop the cascade of frenzied “shoulds” as she hoped without hope to go back in time just long enough to avoid her mistake. Never long enough to avoid capture in the first place.

“I ought to throw you to my wolves! It is only because I am so sentimental that I do not, you certainly deserve it. And after I have saved you from what my master would have done with you! Would you like that instead, Russandol? Hmm? Would you? Sometimes I begin to think you really  _ would  _ prefer that to the comfort I keep you in.” 

And so Maedhros had, eventually.

“But there is absolutely no point at all in trying to convince you of your great good fortune, as you have clearly demonstrated you are too stupid and too obdurate to comprehend it. In fact I think, if you are so thoroughly entrenched in your mistaken view that this is some sort of horrible prison, that I should let you leave.”

As it always did when they got to this part, Maedhros’s spirit lifted on giddy, disbelieving wings and took flight. It would be easier if the knowledge of what always came next could restrain that awful moment of hope. It never did.

Somehow, the creature now had Fingon in its foul hands. At least this time Fingon had been rendered unconscious. It was worse when Maedhros had to see her eyes. Sauron ran an impeccable, many-ringed finger through Fingon’s braids. “Yes, I think you should return to your kin. We have no further use for you, and I think your fair cousin will find my hospitality much more enjoyable. My master tells me that branch of your family has better manners.” 

Was this how birds felt when they were shot from the sky, Maedhros wondered? A pitiful, strangled sound escaped her.  

Her keeper giggled. Its accursed fingers traced gently, almost lovingly, over the lines of Fingon’s face, lingering suggestively about her ear. “Yes, From everything you have showed me,” 

Never willingly, surely Fingon knew that, and surely that counted for something, that she’d never willingly betrayed her? 

“I know that she will be a  _ much  _ more appreciative guest than you have been. After all, she let herself be ensnared by you, and you know I am a much more practiced seducer.” 

_ It was not seduction! _  Maedhros wanted to scream. But she couldn’t, and even if she could it was not the point. Thu had Fingon. No argument about the nature of love could alter that.

“Oh, and I do so enjoy possessing beautiful things. And she is so very beautiful. You… were. Of course, you had to ruin it by destroying yours.”

By disobeying and incurring the wrath of this Maia who did not understand at all the difference between people and things. Though if Maedhros had thought it would have spared her, she would have carved her own face up long ago.

“And no doubt she will appreciate the finer points of poetry that were utterly lost on you. Yes, I think she will understand  _ perfectly  _ the subtlety and the closeness of it when I hold her heart in my hand… I’m sure she is just as fair inside as out. Fairer than you, perhaps, though I must admit I have never seen a prettier liver than yours.” Sauron hummed and bent to lick a slow line up Fingon’s neck with an unnaturally long tongue. “I shall kiss hers too. I think she’ll like that very much, don’t you, Russandol? Something you could never do for her?”

Maedhros, by this point, was sobbing and begging incoherently. Not this, not Fingon, not Fingon. The part of her that knew this was a dream would try to transmute her beloved into other shapes, any other shape. Surely the image of her own mother would suffice for this torment? But the figure in Sauron’s vile embrace remained, as always and unmistakably, Fingon.

“Though I could be persuaded to let her go, if you would mend your insolence. The choice, Russandol, is entirely yours.”

Maedhros was lucky this time. She awoke to pain and disorientation. She must have been flailing badly enough to upset her chair. She thanked whatever mercy it had been that this time she had waked before she had made the choice. 


End file.
